One Figurehead Against the Other essays

One Figurehead Against the Other essays Along with being a personal narrative of a man ¡s journey to overcome sin, the Inferno also is a cascading allegory of the Medieval interpretation of the relationship between good versus evil and the afterlife. It is on the allegorical level that one infers that hell is representative of sin, with Satan as definitive sin at Hell ¡s center. This conjecture of Satan ¡s allegorical meaning is supported in the Inferno as shown by,  ¡Now see the face of Dis! This is the place where you must arm your soul against all dread ¡ (Canto XXXIV, 20-21). Further analysis of this interpretation of the Dark Lord later in the text shows that there is a perversion of the Catholic Holy Trinity present within him. Dante ¡s use of this perversion, rather than simply being a mockery God as many of the sinner ¡s punishments mock their sins on earth, is allegorically representative of how sin, or the ultimate sin in the case of Satan, is a perversion of God ¡s perfect image and grace. When the poets reach the last depth of Cocytus, Dante presents his image of Satan to the reader in a way that clearly perverts the Catholic Trinity and the image of the Christian God. Under Catholic Doctrine, Lucifer was originally an angel of God, who, like earthly men, was created in God ¡s image. This premise is presented early on in the Bible,  ¡Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let him rule over all the earth ¡KGod created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them ¡ (NIV, Genesis. 1:26-27). Lucifer was cast into hell to be eternally tormented for his insolence against the Father and his lust for the throne of heaven. Dante takes this background and shows Satan, the representation of ultimate sin, as a grotesque, demonic figure with the same features of the angel that he was, though lacking the angelic form of those features. This is stated in the Inferno as,  ¡If he ...